If you ever visit any of my social media pages such as my Facebook account or my Instagram account (which I shamelessly post habitually) you will take notice of my very philosophical aesthetic pictures, and also at the fact that every second photo has a friend accompanying me.

I absolutely love posting pictures with my friends, not purely because of the great time we had or the memory that was captured in a single frame but I think posting pictures is my own way of boasting about what a wonderful human being who has crossed my path. I am just being very appreciative of what an amazing person I have and quite frankly I’m showing them off. Yes, I will agree that some bonds are stronger than others and it really depends on how close I am to the person to determine what I say in the caption below but I shall still post a picture regardless – because why not?

Apparently it’s not that simple whilst there are politics involved when posting a selfie with one of your mates.

From a female’s perspective: if I post a photo with one of my best friends who happens to be of the same sex as I am, everybody knows we are really close and we are just out having a great time and taking some good (and horrific) photos because that’s what we do. No one complains – we might even get a healthy amount of likes too.

You would think that since having a guy friend is totally acceptable in modern society, no one would be up in antics about one photo being uploaded thus asking “Are you two dating?”

This form of gender inequality fathoms me. If I can boast about my female friends without question of intention, what makes a male friend so different whom I am not allowed to be proud of? Different loins should not mean a hierarchy of love and support. A friend is a friend regardless of gender, if I’m super gratified of the kind of person you are, you will see your face all over my social media accounts because I feel you deserve some lime light.

I’m pretty sure it is the same from a male’s point of view – if he decides to post an image with his guys, it’s all good, but everybody will turn into the paparazzi the second a female friend is by his side with his arm around her. (There’s this notion of a male’s post is more meaningful because statistically women are more likely to post on social media than men are.) I ask you, friends on social media platforms, why does this act of just uploading images with people of our opposite sex or the sex we are attracted to make the world jump to conclusions? A friend is a friend regardless of gender.

A photo uploaded is not confirming of a relationship or even attraction (If people can partake in sexual intercourse without attraction to each other – nothing wrong with it – then I think assuming such of the same idea over a photo is quite silly.)

So I urge to anyone who thought exactly what I am opposing right now, a friend is a friend regardless of gender. If two people really wanted to let the world know about a sparking relationship happening, they would make it known and obvious so you wouldn’t be asking them over private messenger if it was. Let your friends be, without shoving judgements down their throats because… a friend is a friend regardless of gender

To anyone who has been afraid to upload that really cool photo of you and your best friend – do it. It never goes unappreciated by the other party because secretly we all want to be shown off by the ones we are close to. Stop caring about what people may or may not think.